


Neither Thought nor Memory

by thedorkygirl



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-11
Updated: 2005-05-11
Packaged: 2020-06-24 20:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19731580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedorkygirl/pseuds/thedorkygirl
Summary: Veronica checks the car twice before she enters. Postfinale. Does this count as unrhymed iambic pentameter?





	Neither Thought nor Memory

(asterisk)

Veronica checks her car twice before  
she enters. Under, because in middle  
school her health teacher told her about girls  
getting their legs slashed in grocery store  
parking lots (then: rape). She imagines them  
sometimes. They cannot run, and the blood pools  
in their shoes. Inside, because - well. Because.

She tells herself that a real phobia  
would immobilize her. This is simply  
a mild case of PTSD (or, what  
are they calling it these days? certainly  
not the good ol' shell shock of World War II).  
If Veronica carries an extra  
cell phone in her bag for emergencies,  
it's only because her carrier has  
the nifty five dollar a month charge  
for her family plan, and who doesn't  
take advantage of a steal like that?

Lying in her purse next to a sharpened  
nail file, she's got two flashlights (brand new, and  
she changes the batteries every month,  
whether she used them or not). She admits:  
that might be a little over the top.  
Who needs two flashlights in their purse, anyway?  
One used to do her fine. Times, they do change.

She doesn't get rid of the second, though.  
Just in case (it might be an OCD).

At night, after her father has fallen  
asleep and she's lain in bed quietly  
for as long as she thinks she can, she tries  
to find the fragments and pieces of her  
(self) and the person who she used to be.  
There's a trick to it: Veronica holds  
her breath and wraps her arms around her soul,  
clutching tight fistfuls of it when she can.  
Veronica's afraid she might lose it  
any other way. Now it isn't safe  
to breathe anymore. She stays very still  
until she bursts out a great gush of air.  
She gasps and labors for the next breath and -

Obviously, she must keep it inside  
(again). How else will she live? Her Lilly's  
abandoned her now, and she's forgotten  
how to exist without her in the back  
of her thoughts. Veronica's terrified  
that soon there will be an entire day with  
neither thought nor memory of Lilly.

Maybe that'd be okay for the dead girl,  
but the one still alive can't allow it.

"You need to see a therapist," he says,  
tossing a couple of socks in the air.

"I thought you were supposed to support me  
when I unloaded." And Veronica  
doesn't meet his eyes but stares at the floor.

"Well, this stuff is messed up, Veronica.  
How do you function with all of it up  
there in your head racing about like that?"

"That," she says, "is the sixty-four thousand  
dollar question." Conversation over.

(Only that doesn't happen, because she  
has seen in her mind's eye how exactly  
her confidant will freak, and she can't deal  
with it going like that. She can't handle  
him telling her to visit a damn shrink  
when all she really needs is just this thing:  
to never, ever forget Lilly Kane -  
and how can Veronica find someone  
to remember Lilly quite like she will?)

Veronica watches old home movies  
to save Lilly, because she's the only  
one who's trying to keep her anymore.  
And, maybe, saving Lilly, she can save  
herself.

(asterisk)

finis


End file.
